Dish



Patented Dec. 14, 1943 DISH Walter W. Metcalf, Hoosick Falls, N. Y., assignor to St evens & Thom Greenwich, N. Y., a co pson Paper Company, rporation of New York Application January 29, 1941, Serial No. 376,487 8 Claims. (01. 229-31) My invention relates to receptacles, and particularly to dishes of the type which are formed from blanks of paper or other flexible material. Such dishes are used by grocers, meat dealers and others for butter, lard, chopped meat and similar commodities, and are invariably packed, shipped, and stored in nested stacks until used. It is therefore of great advantage to have a dish of such design that one may be nested compactly within another so that as great a number of dishes as possible may be stacked within a given space.

Dishes of this general type always have outwardly flared sides and ends in order that one may be nested within the other, and the blanks from which the dishes are formed are bent or folded and the parts secured together in dishforming relation by means of glue or staples. In other Words, in the dish as formed, certain portions of the blank overlap and are glued or stapled to other portions thereof, usually at the ends of the dish, and here, due to the overlapping, the dish is substantially thicker than in other portions. When a number of dishes of the present well known designs is nested these thicker portions lie together and therefore determine the compactness of the assembly.

The principal object of my invention is to provide a glued or pasted dish in which the overlapped portions of the blank are so disposed that the dishes may be more compactly stacked than is possible with present designs, and I accomplish this end by forming my dishes from the blanks described below and illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which- Fig. l is a. plan view of my preferred form of blank;

Fig. 2 is a perspective view of my dish;

Fig. 3 is an end view of three of my dishes in partially nested relation;

Fig. l is an enlarged section taken in about the plane 44 of Fig. 3 after two of the dishes have been pushed together into compactly nested relation;

Fig. 5 is an enlarged section similar to Fig. 4 but taken through a corner of the dish in the end opposite, or to the rear of, the end shown in Fig. 3. I

Fig. 6 is amodified form of the blank;

Fig. 7 is a perspective view of a dish formed from the blank shown in Fig. 6;

Fig. 8 is a section of Fig. '7 in about the plane 8-8; and

Fig. 9 is a section of Fig. 7 in about the plane Referring to the drawings, the blank from which my preferred type of dish is formed is illustrated in Fig. 1. It is generally rectangular in form and comprises a bottom I, panels 2 and 3, and opposite end panels 4 and 5. The side panels 2 and 3 have flaps i1 and I8 at one end only, and only one of the end panels, 5, is provided with flaps 8 and 9. Thus, the blank at one end is out along the lines 6 and 1 which lie in the corners of the dish when the blank is folded, and the end panel 5 is provided with end flaps 8 and 9 by scoring the blank along the lines In and H. When the blank is folded into dish form the ends 6 and 1 of the side panels 2 and 3 coincide with the scores It and H, respectively, and the end flaps 8 and 9 are bent around, and adhesively secured to, the side panels as shown at l2 in Fig. 2, l3 in Fig. 5, and M in Fig. 4. At the other end, the blank out along the lines l9 and 20 and scored along the lines I5 and Hi to provide the above mentioned flaps I! and [8 attached to the side panels 2 and 3. When the side panels 2 and 3 and the end panel 4 are bent into dish-forming relation the flaps l1 and iii are folded around and adhesively secured to the end panel 4, as shown at 32 in Fig. 2. Thus it will be apparent that the sides and ends of the dish intersect to form the vertex lines of four dihedral angles at the corners of the dish, and that the flaps or overlapping portions which secure the sides of the dish together are so arranged at each corner that at one side of the vertex line of each dihedral angle there is a plurality of thicknesses of material while at the other side there is only one thickness of material. Thus, while the dish is symmetrical with respect to a plane passing through its center and perpendicular to the panels t and 5, it is asymmetrical with respect to a plane passing through the center of the dish and perpendicular to the panels 2 and 3. In stacking, each dish is turned end for end with respect to the dish below it, so that when any two dishes in the stack are considered, the end panel 4 of one of them lies adjacent the end panel 5 of the dish above and below it. This will be apparent from a consideration of Figs. 4 and 5 which show fragmentary sections through the corners at opposite ends of two dishes in nested or stacked relation. Thus, the maximum number of plies of material which lie together when two of my dishes of this type are nested together is three, as shown in these figures.

In the case of dishes which are made symmetrical With respect to both the aforesaid planes,

opposite side ing lines 26, 21 and as heretofore has been the practice, at least four thicknesses of material come together at the corners when one dish is nested within another. In some of the present dishes of this general type where the blank is not cut but portions are merely folded together at the ends and secured by a staple, six thicknesses of paper or board lie adjacent each other when two dishes are nested together. while a difference of only one ply or thickness makes a very slight difference in the vertical space occupied by only two nested dishes, it makes a very substantial difference in height when a hundred or more dishes are so. nested. Thus, by using dishes of my type many more dishes may be stacked in a given space than is otherwise possible which effects a considerable saving in storage space and shipping costs.

In Fig. 6 I have shown a plan view of a modified type of blank in which the side panels 2| and 22 and the end panels 23 and 24 are not separated at the corners. Here, the corners of the blank are merely cut out, as shown at 25, and the blank is scored at each corner along the diverg- 28 to facilitate folding. It is understood, of course, that in all cases the blank is scored along the lines of intersection of the bottom with the side and end panels.

The blank shown in Fig. 6 is folded in substantially the same as the blank shown in Fig. 1. In folding, the scores 26 and 28% are brought together at the corners of the dish and the material in the blank at the corners and between the side and end panels is folded together. At one end of the dish this folded material is again folded along the then coincident scores 26 and 28 over the end panel and adhesively secured thereto as shown at 29 and 30 in Fig. '7. At the other end of the dish the material between the coincident scores 26 and 28 is folded over and adhesively secured to the side panels, as shown at 3! in Figs. 7 and 8.

Dishes of the type shown in Figs. I, 8 and 9 are similarly asymmetrical and are stacked in the same way as described in connection with the dishes shown in the other figures of the drawing and while they cannot be stacked as compactly as dishes of my preferred type, nevertheless, they may be more compactly stacked than the present symmetrically formed dishes. It will be obvious that, if the dishes were made symmetrical, there would be six thicknesses of material lying together at each corner when one dish is nested within another, but by forming the dishes in the manner which I have just described two dishes may be nested together with only four thicknesses of material lying together at the corners.

Since the material is continuous between the side and end panels of the dish formed from the blank shown in Fig. '6 it cannot leak at the corners as might be the case in dishes of the type formed from the blank shown in Fig. 1 due to defective gluing.

What I claim is:

l. A dish-like receptacle of the character described formed from a blank of flexible material and comprising a bottom and outwardly flared sides and ends, portions of the sides of said -receptacle adjacent one end only thereof overlying and being secured to adjacent portions of said one end and portions of the other end cril-y of said receptacle overlying and being secured to the sides thereof. V

2. A dish-like receptacle of the character -de scribed formed from a blank of flexible material and comprising a bottom and outwardly flared sides and ends, said sides having flaps at one end only which overlap and are secured to the adjacent end of said receptacle, and one only of said ends having flaps which overlap and are secured to adjacent portions of the sides of said receptacle.

3. A dish-like receptacle of the character described formed from a blank of flexible material and comprising a bottom and outwardly flared sides and ends, the sides of said receptacle being provided at one end only with flaps which overlie and are adhesively secured to the adjacent portions of one end of said receptacle, and the other end only of said receptacle being provided with end fla-ps which overlie and are adhesively secured to the adjacent portions of the sides of said receptacle.

4. A dish-like receptacle of the character described comprising a generally rectangular blank of flexible material having the marginal portions thereof upturned and forming outwardly flared sides and ends of said receptacle; each of those portions of said blank at two adjacent corners thereof and lying between the portions forming the sides and one end of said receptacle constituting a single flap and being folded over and secured to the sides of said receptacle, and each of the corresponding portions of said blank at the other two corners constituting a single flap and being folded over and secured to the other end of said receptacle.

5. A dish-like receptacle of the character described comprising a generally rectangular blank of flexible material having the marginal portions thereof upturned and forming outwardly flared sides and ends of said receptacle; each of those portions of said blank at two adjacent corners thereof and lying between the portions forming the sides and one end of said receptacle constituting a single flap and being folded over and adhesively secured to the sides of said receptacle, and each of the corresponding portions of said blank at the other two corners constituting a single flap and being folded over and adhesively secured to the other end of said receptacle.

6. A blank for forming a dish of the character described comprising a generally rectangular piece of flexible material having marginal portions adapted to be upturned to form two, opposi-tely disposed, outwardly flared side panels and two oppositely disposed, outwardly flared end panels of said dish, and each of the portions at the four corners of said blank lying between said side and end panel-forming portions forming a single flap for securing said panel-forming portions of said blank in dish-formed relation; said blank having slits therein at one end separating one of the end panel-forming portions from the adjacent flap-forming portions and slits at the other end separating the side panel-forming p'ortions from the adjacent flap forming portions.

7. A dish-like receptacle of the character described formed from a blank of flexible material and comprising a rectangular bottom and four outwardly flared sides extending upwardly therefrom and forming four dihedral angles at the corners of said receptacle; said sides having overlapping portions at the four corners of said dish for securing said sides together in dish-forming relation; said overlapping portions being so arranged that said receptacle has only one thickness of material at one side of the vertex line of each dihedral angle and a plurality of thicknesses of material at the other side of said vertex line; and said overlapping portions being asymlygonal bottom and outwardly flared sides exmetrically disposed with respect to one plane tending upwardly therefrom; adjacent sides inpassing through the center of said receptacle and tersecting to form the vertex line of a dihedral perpendicular to two oppositely disposed sides and angle and a corner of said receptacle; said dishes symmetrically disposed with respect to a second 5 having overlapping portions at said corners for plane passing through said center at right angles securing said sides together in dish-forming relato the first mentioned plane; whereby a plurality tion; said overlapping portions being so arranged of said receptacles may be compactly stacked in that said receptacle has only one thickness of a minimum of space by nesting them together material at one side of the vertex line of each with said one thickness of material at each corner 10 dihedral angle and a plurality of thicknesses of of each dish adjacent said plurality of thicknesses material at the other side of said line; and said of material at each of the corners of the next receptacles being so relatively disposed to each adjacent dishes. other in said stack that said one thickness of 8. A stack comprising a plurality of dish-like material at the corners of onereceptacle lies receptacles of the character described assembled 15 adjacent said plurality of thicknesses of material together in nested relation, each receptacle being at the corners of the next adjacent receptacles. formed of flexible material and comprising a po- WALTER W. METCALF. 

